ISRAEL
Topple Hamas, minister says
The country should seek to topple the Islamist rulers of Gaza, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said yesterday. “The goal that we have settled on, of seeking a return to calm, is a grave error because it will allow Hamas to reinforce along the lines of Hezbollah,” Lieberman told public radio, referring to the Lebanese militia with which Israel fought a 2006 war. “The objective must be to force Hamas out of power,” the leader ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party said. A tense truce with Hamas appeared to be taking hold early yesterday after days of confrontation. Others within Lieberman’s party, including Minister of National Infrastructures Uzi Landau, expressed support for assassinations targeting Hamas members.
BAHRAIN
Rights activist summoned
A prominent activist yesterday was accused by the government of publishing fabricated images online and was summoned for questioning in an ongoing crackdown following pro-democracy protests. The official Bahrain News Agency (BNA) said Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, had published doctored images with links to social media site Twitter of one of two men who died at a detention center on Saturday. Rajab, who has not been questioned yet, denied on Twitter he had fabricated any images. “All this effort to strike at my credibility because the number of followers I have on Twitter and Facebook is more than the viewers of Bahrain TV,” he wrote on Sunday.
SERBIA
Plane crashes into village
A small private plane crashed on Sunday, killing the pilot and three passengers. Civil aviation authorities said the single-engine Cessna 172 went down in Mrcajevci, a village about 200km south of Belgrade. Authorities said the plane clipped power cables and crashed in a populated area of the village. No one was injured on the ground. Belgrade’s B92 TV quoted witnesses as saying they could not hear the sound of the engine moments before the plane went down, indicating it might have failed.
AUSTRALIA
Academy head steps aside
The head of the elite Defence Force Academy has stepped aside and a review of the treatment of women at the college ordered yesterday after a sex scandal involving a female cadet. Minister for Defence Stephen Smith announced a series of inquiries after a male student filmed himself having sex with a female colleague at the academy and allegedly secretly broadcast it to his friends via Skype. Smith said the head of the college, Bruce Kafer, whom he had previously criticized for his handling of the woman’s complaint, had been asked to take indefinite leave while the inquiries were underway.
INDIA
Few expectations: Hazare
A 73-year-old whose 98-hour hunger strike in New Delhi against corruption ended with big concessions from the government said on Sunday he had no idea his campaign would win national support. “I did not know that this protest would spread throughout the country,” said Anna Hazare, a Mahatma Gandhi devotee, a day after his demands for changes to a new anti-graft bill were accepted. The use of methods made famous by Gandhi, Hazare’s frail resemblance to the father of the nation and blanket media coverage helped him spread his message.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of